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Humans have altered plant biogeography by introducing species from one region to another, but an analysis of how naturalized plant species affect the uniqueness of regional floras around the world was missing. This study presents an analysis using data from native and naturalized alien floras in 658 regions, finding strong taxonomic and phylogenetic floristic homogenization overall.

Combining multiomic datasets from adolescent and middle-aged-to-older population cohorts with a purposefully devised analytical framework, we revealed substantial heterogeneity in brain-chronotype-behavior patterns and their complex interactions with everyday life.

Increasing age and disease progression negatively impact remyelination in Multiple Sclerosis. Here authors show that genetically edited human oligodendrocyte precursor cells may help overcome remyelination inhibitors and improve remyelination after transplantation into mouse brain.

Polygenic scores for body mass index and obesity constructed using data from 5 million people with different ancestries were associated with distinct weight gain trajectories from early childhood to adulthood.

With aging comes a decline in remyelination efficiency, but it is currently unknown why this occurs. In this study, the authors reveal an age-dependent epigenetic mechanism that modulates the levels of oligodendrocyte differentiation inhibitors and dictates the extent of remyelination.

A cross-ancestry meta-analysis of genome-wide association studies identifies association signals for stroke and its subtypes at 89 (61 new) independent loci, reveals putative causal genes, highlighting F11, KLKB1, PROC, GP1BA, LAMC2 and VCAM1 as potential drug targets, and provides cross-ancestry integrative risk prediction.

Iridoids are terpenoid metabolites found in thousands of plants. Using single-cell transcriptomics, the authors discovered an unexpected enzyme that has been neofunctionalized to catalyse the cyclization required to form the iridoid scaffold.

Woven topologies endow macroscopic objects with mechanical stability, but their molecular counterparts have remained difficult to prepare. Now, an extended triaxial supramolecular weave has been formed by the self-assembly of a judiciously shaped organic building block — a rigid oligoproline segment featuring two perylene-monoimide moieties — through π–π stacking and CH–π interactions.

V1298 Tau b is a 20–30-Myr-old Jovian-sized planet with a haze-free, metal-poor atmosphere and a potentially hot interior. These properties suggest that V1298 Tau b formed in situ via pebble accretion and that it is still evolving and likely to become a Neptune- or sub-Neptune-sized planet.

Elaine Fuchs is renowned for her research in skin biology, stem cells and associated disorders, including cancers and inflammation, and has published over 380 articles. She received her PhD in biochemistry from Princeton University, did postdoctoral research in cell biology at MIT, and has been on the faculty at the University of Chicago and now Rockefeller University. Her awards include the National Medal of Science, L’Oréal-UNESCO Award, the International Society for Stem Cell Research (ISSCR) Innovation Award, the Canada Gairdner International Award and the Franklin Medal. She is a member of the National Academy of Sciences, National Academy of Medicine, American Philosophical Society, Pontifical Academy of Sciences, and the Royal Society.

Testicular germ cell tumours (TGCT) are the most common cancers in young men. Here, the authors analyse the genomic landscape of TGCT using data from the Genomics England 100,000 Genomes Project, revealing divergent evolutionary trajectories and the prevalence of human leukocyte antigen loss.

There is still a need for effective HIV vaccines. In this phase I clinical trial, the authors show that an HIV-1 vaccine candidate, ConM SOSIP.v7, is well-tolerated in HIV-negative adults and that it elicits a strain-specific neutralising antibody response that differed between female and male participants.

White matter hyperintensities (WMH) are a common brain-imaging feature of cerebral small vessel disease. Here, the authors carry out a GWAS and followup analyses for WMH-volume, implicating several variants with potential for risk stratification and drug targeting.

How repair of DNA interstrand crosslinks contributes to mutagenesis is not understood. Here, the authors identify two mutagenic repair pathways in C. elegans: FAN1-mediated translesion synthesis causing SNVs, and POLQ-mediated end joining leading to deletions. They also uncover a role for TRAIP.

In heart muscle cells, a region of the sarcolemmal membrane periodically invaginates to form T tubules, a specialized membrane domain that contains important ion channels regulating cell contraction. Robin Shaw and his colleagues describe how a cardiac-specific splice variant of the isoform of the protein BIN1 helps make folds in T tubules, which affects the ability of ions in the extracellular space to freely diffuse and protects the heart from arrhythmia.

Sexual interactions with males shorten the lifespan of the opposite sex in several species, including Caenorhabditis elegans, but the mechanisms are not fully understood. Here the authors use transcriptomic profiling in C. elegans to systematically identify the genetic pathways involved in male-induced demise, which include upregulation of a conserved ion channel that regulates fat metabolism.

Genomic analyses applied to 14 childhood- and adult-onset psychiatric disorders identifies five underlying genomic factors that explain the majority of the genetic variance of the individual disorders.

In this cross-sectional study, the authors used structural MRI to compare subcortical volumes, cortical thickness and surface area between early-onset anorexia nervosa, avoidant/restrictive food intake disorder and typically developing young individuals.

A large genome-wide association study of more than 5 million individuals reveals that 12,111 single-nucleotide polymorphisms account for nearly all the heritability of height attributable to common genetic variants.

Compact exoplanetary systems masses have a similar mass ratio compared to the host star’s mass. Here, authors propose that these planets are surviving remnants of planet accretion during the end stages of stellar infall.

A novel multistep strategy reveals how parent-of-origin effects shape complex traits in large-scale biobanks.

By examining several cell-free biomimetic-collagen-based materials in murine and ovine bone-defect models, the twisted plywood pattern of collagen-based materials is shown to favourably influence bone regeneration and contributes to bone autograft performance.

NADH and NAD+ act as electron donors and acceptors and NAD+ was shown to stimulate mitochondrial biogenesis and metabolic health. Here, the researchers developed and validated a non-invasive Phosphorous Magnetic Resonance Spectroscopy method to non-invasively quantify NAD+ and NADH in muscle on a clinical 3 T MRI scanner.

Ying, Paulson and collagues have developed an open-source framework, Biolearn, to harmonize and systematically evaluate 39 aging biomarkers across diverse populations, enabling standardized validation and facilitating development of robust aging biomarkers.

An international consortium reports the genomic sequence for ten Drosophila species, and compares them to two other previously published Drosophila species. These data are invaluable for drawing evolutionary conclusions across an entire phylogeny of species at once.

Macrolactones exhibit distinct conformational and configurational properties and are widely found in natural products but catalysts to govern both macrolactone formation and stereochemical control remain largely unexplored. Here, the authors disclose an N-heterocyclic carbene (NHC)-catalyzed enantioselective synthesis of chiral macrolactones varying in ring size from sixteen to twenty members that feature distinct configurationally stable planar stereogenicity.

Tam et al. compare molecular features between adolescents and young adult (AYA) and older adult (OA) patients with soft tissue tumours and identify that components of the spliceosome complex are independent prognostic factors for metastasis free survival in AYA patients.

The PIWI protein MIWI2 counteracts transposon activity by transcriptional silencing in the mammalian germline. Here, the authors show that TEX15 interacts with MIWI2 and is required for piRNA-directed methylation of transposable elements in male germ cells.

Assessing brain aging heterogeneity in a cohort of 49,482 individuals from 11 studies, a generative model identifies five dominant patterns of brain atrophy, with specific associations with biomedical, lifestyle and genetic factors.

Knowing how moving droplets dissipate energy is important for designing superhydrophobic surfaces, but measuring such small energy losses is challenging. Timonen et al.develop a technique to do this, which monitors freely decaying and resonant oscillations of moving magnetic droplets.

This flagship study from the European Solve-Rare Diseases Consortium presents a diagnostic framework including bioinformatic analysis of clinical, pedigree and genomic data coupled with expert panel review, leading to 500 new diagnoses in a cohort of 6,000 families with suspected rare diseases.

Multisystem inflammatory syndrome following SARS-CoV-2 infection results from increased serum levels of TGFβ, which impairs the reactivation of virus-specific T cells.

Trapped films of air known as plastrons are promising for underwater engineering but typically have short lifetimes. Here, aerophilic titanium alloy surfaces are developed with thermodynamically stabilized plastrons for antifouling applications.

TSPO PET imaging is widely used to quantify microglial activation. Here, the authors show that TSPO expression increases in activated rodent but not human microglia, implying that in humans TSPO informs on microglial density rather than activation status.

A genome-wide association meta-analysis study of blood lipid levels in roughly 1.6 million individuals demonstrates the gain of power attained when diverse ancestries are included to improve fine-mapping and polygenic score generation, with gains in locus discovery related to sample size.